I want to spend a few minutes sharing a few key points that truly resonated with me. Most importantly, this article Wharton blog post reinforces the notion that leadership not only must support digital initiatives as business strategy, but they must be deeply a part of the conversation.
The most important paragraph:
“Business model risk is today’s biggest strategic risk, and companies without boards that are digitally savvy could find themselves starved of investor capital, according to this opinion piece written by Deloitte & Touche partners William J. Ribaudo and Henry Ristuccia; Barry Libert, CEO of OpenMatters, and his associate Megan Beck Fenley.”
Why do we blog?
So what do I mean when I say the “ethos” of blogging? So ask yourself, why do you blog? Is it a platform to tell your story? Is it a place to journal? Is it a place to build awareness for your organization? Do you make money from your blog?
Ok…so let’s tackle the last question. More and more people I talk to…more and more people want to know how to make money from your blog. Many people place ads on their blog. Many people track clicks as they help direct traffic to products and services. I like to talk about how to build credibility.
Why is credibility important?
Credibility is one the biggest issues I think we should always bear in mind when it comes to representing our interests not only in the off-line business space but the online in the digital space.
A few years ago, I was working with an investment firm that had just created a new company with a new board a directors. Once of the biggest issues they faced…credibility. Great leadership running this group but lots of bad press online after the economic collapse, especially given the fact some of the individuals came from banking.
We needed to build some online credibility. Specifically, when people performed Google searches of these individuals, we needed to have links to articles that provided content beyond the bad press. We needed to take ownership of their online identity.
A simple plan to build credibility
The new website for this company was the typical postcard web presence. We added two things: a blog and a news section. We started writing blog posts from the leadership, content they created in their voice, and posted on a regular basis. We also started posting news releases consistently on the site detailing monthly items we wanted the public to know, positive content about the company that included the board’s names inside the copy.
The next thing we did was create a Twitter account for the company and a monthly email newsletter. With Twitter, we followed all the news outlets in the region along with local businesses, agencies, and organizations where the board had relationships. We were hoping they would follow us back. Then we started sharing our news and blogs, along with items from the life of the organization.
The email newsletter was a monthly email blast to investors and influential people in region where the board had relationships. This was just a simple newsletter repurposing content from the blog and news sections of the website. We only included the first part of the news item or blog with links back to the website to read more.
Over time with consistent writing, sharing, and directing people back to the website…we began building traction. We watched the hits increase each month and we also began to notice the blogs and news items rose in the Google Rankings, especially when people performed searches of the board of directors names.
Sharing our story
*We* were sharing *our* story, sharing the story from *our* perspective, and building online credibility. So, what does this have to do with making money? *We* did not have ads on the blog or news sections. *We* did not have a product or service we were directing our clicks for revenue. *We* were building credibility for the *sales* cycle. *We* were not talking about sales or investments in the blogs or newsletters…*we* were talking about leadership, entrepreneurship, and what it was like to build this type of company model during this financial climate. We were telling our story.
The Pay-Off
This past year, a potential investor met with one of the individuals on the executive team. He had attended few group meetings and wanted to have a one-on-one meeting with a person on the executive team. When the meeting began, this potential investor shared that he had learned a lot about this executive team member. He had been reading the blog, reading the newsletter, and had enjoyed getting to know him virtually. At the end of the meeting, the individual wrote a check for a large six figure amount. Let’s just say that this investment paid for blog and the digital media consulting services was paid back more than 20 times over.
In this model…building digital credibility was a huge part of their success. Ethos is everything in the world of blogging and it is more than just thinking about direct revenue from each blog post, click, or hit. Sometimes we have to think bigger for the big return.
There was a wonderful discussion on #Blogchat Sunday night surrounding how do we find inspiration to blog when we are faced with writers block. Great discussion and great question. I think this is a bigger question than just blogging…it is a creative writing question.
Blogging is a digital display of our most passionate thoughts. It is the place to share our ideas, our thoughts, our visions, our business…it is our editorial voice for online ownership. Blogging is very personal.
So how do we take something so personal and put it to paper, as the old cliche goes. What makes us sit down and type away, and share our thoughts with a mass audience. It comes from inspiration…it is the connection between our ideas and how we articulate these ideas in a digital paradigm. Most people think blogging is just about writing. Some of the best blogs are more that just words, they are pictures, videos, podcasts…they are the visual representation of our thoughts.
In order to understand the question how to find inspiration to blog or write…we must figure out what inspires us. Inspiration comes from connection…how we are able to connect with our ideas and articulate those ideas in a way for others to consume. How, when, where do I find inspiration? It is about trust and listening. We have to trust our instincts and listen to the little creative bug that says, “that is a great idea…so you better write it down.”
Blogging is more than just inspiration. Inspiration comes at the oddest times for me. It might come at 4am when I am laying awake in the bed. It might be standing in the shower. It might be when I am riding down the road. But when a creative thought comes across my mind…I know I must find a way to document and articulate that thought. If I am driving, I might try to record some audio of my thoughts. If it is in the middle of the night…I might pick-up my iPad and jot down some notes. If it is a visual image infront of me, I might pull out my camera and snap a picture.
Blogging is more than just writing…it is capturing and articulating media. So many people preach that we must use pictures, video, and other digital mediums to grab interest or even leverage SEO. Yeah…those are great thoughts. But as a documentary storyteller, I think we should use those mediums to articulate our thoughts. We should use video when video explains our thoughts better than the written word. We should use images or pictures when reinforcing our written argument. We should use audio from a podcast or MP3 when sounds bring meaning and depth to our explanations.
Blogging is more than just communication…it is illustrating our digital thoughts in a way so the visual world can see our world view. Blogging is the one time we can combine all the visual and digital means to share our thoughts. We have the ability to help our audiences navigate through our story.
So where do we find inspiration…make sure we are truly connected to why we write, why we blog, why we share. Trust that if we are not inspired to write, blog, or even share…to trust that inspiration will present itself again. We just have to be willing to listen to our creative inspiration…and share those thoughts.
Recently…I have become increasingly irritated with rubric’s and how-to’s that are consistently floating around the social space. It is driving me up a wall. Most of this is inside the world of blogging and the social space…that we must find a way to create a path for the perfect blog, that we must create the perfect social “strategy”, and there is a formula for social media messaging.
It is my humble opinion that those that are preaching these strategies, rubrics, and methods are in the business for their checkbooks. Each time I watch the tweets come down the timeline, “5 ways to do…”, “how to measure…”, the perfect blog must have…”, it is all about generating revenue for the person writing the posts.
Writing from the heart and creating great content is not “BS”. You cannot put a path to success when it comes to writing, connecting, and building an online community around a social outlet. There is no magic cookie cutter. Anyone that is selling this, pushing this, or tweeting this is selling it to generate their own income streams and not bringing value to this initial open source community.
If you do not have a passion for writing…then while the hell are you blogging? If you do not have a passion for exploring ideas, generating genuine creative thoughts, and connecting with others online…then why are you interacting in the social space.
I have read more and more tweets and blogs screaming to re-define the word marketing in this social space or 3.0. Many of which are searching to create a whole new space based on consumer trends and big company strategies. Why are they are re-defining this…well it is helping them land the next retainer deal, speaking engagement, big corporate marketing gig. But those same folks who surround themselves in chats an online discussions pushing what they deem is innovation…well they are actually trying to put this social space of user created content into a cookie cutter, placing a marketing dollar to each tweet, blog post, youtube video, and Facebook update.
These same “innovators” are actually stifling the social space right back into the same old marketing channels. Each of these spaces are becoming distribution points of corporate generated content specifically geared to track and generate a metric. Why, because the CEO’s and the VP’s of Finance who sign-off on these initiatives need a metric. We are right back where we started when the social space was beginning to appear.
Twitter is now the AP Newswire, Facebook is the new email chain, and YouTube is now our living television set. Just distribution points for those pesky marketers to generate a strategy for ads, product placement, and sponsorships. WTF…hashtags that are sponsored? Great…can’t wait. Sign me up.
“Because hashtags are important, packing tweets with them defeats their purpose. It muddies communication – of all people, Comms peeps should know the vitality of clarity, and the cost of clutter and noise. Why so many Healthcare pros don’t understand such a simple concept is beyond me, but I digress.
I’ve thought to myself: you know, Twitter once had so much promise, and now it’s becoming all serious business and so-called marketing. What a shame. We’ll all lose in the end.”
Thanks Phil, I do not think we will all loose…but there is a big ole shift.
Several months ago, I was talking with a very smart lady, Robbin Phillips after she came and spoke to some students at Clemson. She says it so nicely…(i am paraphrasing): “there is just so much noise out there in this space.” I have to agree.
I blame us…us marketing people have gone out and screwed it up. We had to find a way to put in some sort of cookie cutter system so we can track it and metric the crap out of each profile and communication channel online. Hell, we are even spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars for companies like Radian6. We want to track those conversations. And we will pay top dollar to analyze the heck out of those conversations.
All of this stifles innovation. It stifles passionate writing. It stifles true connection. It prohibits individuals to use places like blogs, YouTube, and other creative outlets to become pioneers. We want each of them to think there is a rubric for using these channels then track the success. Why can’t success be simply creating content, writing passionately, making a cool video. What if the only person that you were communicating to was just one person. If that person read it, listened to it, connected with the message…then led to see life through the authors eyes…then success? Right?
I remember when I was working on my thesis for graduate school and some of the many academic articles that followed. Each person in the academy I spoke too told me that getting an academic thesis or academic article approved was like jumping through hoops. My mother calls it “Hoop Dreams.” Yes…it was almost like social construction of knowledge. My genuine ideas were shaped to meet the expectations of those academic gate keepers whose agenda’s were played out in each word that was written. Some argue this process is necessary to form true scholarship…to meet the expectations of the academic world. I see the value in this process, but I also see the value in allowing true innovative writing and thinking to shine.
The connection here is that regardless where we go, where we write, what we create….someone wants to fit it into a cookie cutter paradigm. The social space is starting to shape-up to be just that. We marketers and new media people are trying to force clients, organizations, and small businesses into a framework that meets the needs of our pocket books. Why not just teach the technology and how them to utilize this framework as a place to share our inner thoughts, a place to express our inner beings.
Content is King. Communities grow as content and ideas are created. In order to connect we must share our thoughts and communicate.
I think there is a true progression in the way people create innovative content and connect through their ideas.
Idea —> Content Creation –> Content Shared —> Ideas Consumed –> People Connect … then the cycle starts over again.
A blog is just a place to hold thoughts. A video is visual representation to share motion, action, sounds that represent our creativity. These are just technological theaters for others to engage with our ideas. If we are thinking, writing, sharing in a way that the people that are truly interested in reading, listening, watching, understanding…then their peripheral vision will disappear and become completely engaged in the passionate content we create!
I was working with a group the other day around topics for their blog and ways to tell passionate stories for the audiences. We were listing topic areas, stories, and putting a rough schedule together to build consistency in their writing. They were extremely focused on the schedule so much so that they were worried about breaking outside of that schedule of writing. I have a few points to make here that will yield to my thesis that writing passionately yields community writing.
I told them that this schedule was just merely a barometer, and when you find a compelling story to tell…sit and write. Share your story and share it often. I think about writing for my blog almost like the way I began dating my wife. When, I first met my wife in graduate school…I fell in love. I knew I was going to marry her. It just took me two years for her to agree. As we began dating, we would go out, talk on the phone, meet for coffee, and learn to get to know each other. I had the three day rule.
The three day rule meant that after we would go out, I would not bother her for three days. I did not want to encroach on her space. I valued her friendship and I wanted to get to know her. But, I did not want to push her away…I wanted her to want to enjoy our time together. I was passionate about our relationship. Overtime we grew closer and the three day rule slowly disappeared.
Writing passionately is sort of the same concept. I try to build a relationship with the people that read my blog. I may not be the best, but I try. I try not to write too much to overload the “Internet” space and the people that receive my blog via email and Google reader. My wife is my barometer with this rule. She has been writing for close to five years on her blog. She writes about the following topics: life after her mother (who died of breast cancer), fighting infertility, against cause marketing, and her family. She writes about these topics and she writes passionately. She writes when she is inspired. Sometimes she writes everyday, and sometimes she writes after a month off.
She has built a pretty good community of readers. She has attracted successful authors and other bloggers like herself to share in her mission. But here is the thing, she is now writing with them. What do I mean by that? She will write about a topic, people will comment, she will respond, she will read their blog posts and respond, then she will write another post sometimes based on how her community is writing or responding to her. She has built a conversation around her blog, a community of people that have common interests and passions. She gets regular emails from her readers.
How does she do this? Well, she has a focus for her blog and she shares with her community. She writes straight from the heart…when she feels led to write. There is no set schedule, there is no checklist…just a passion for her topics and for the people that respond in her community. She regularly is reading her friends blog and genuinely responding to their posts. She is building a community and this community’s writing is influencing each other in a way that they are writing for each other.
So here is my point. Writing for a blog has three elements: Focused Content, Passionate Writing, Engaging with Your Community. This is a barometer that I think will lead to a community of people that share your same interests.
The other night while interacting with folks in the #Blogchat community, one person asked: “Can someone explain conversation?” As I was watching this Twitter dialogue fly by…this update caught my attention. The context to this question, how to build a community of conversations on your blog.
Let’s define a conversation: “Informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy.” Thanks Dictionary.com.
So how can you have conversations on a blog, you might ask. Well, to have a conversation…there has to be an exchange, a dialogue, two or more people have to engage in social discourse. People have to engage in conversation.
Before there is exchange of dialogue, there has to be the introduction of a thought. Someone must take the time to write something that invokes a conversation. So how do we write to engage in a conversation on a place like a blog? Well, we must write passionately. Some of the most successful blogs that I read are ones that write straight from the heart. They write about topics they are passionate about. These blogs are the written form of their advocacy. They have a reason to write, they have a strong sense of ethics.
These blogs have a system of measurement. When I mean measurement, they do not necessarily mean that they measure the number of clicks or actions. They measure something that quantifies what they write touches another person in a way that engages a response. Whether it is clicking, referring, sharing, commenting, etc…they have some sense of measurement.
These bloggers/writers know who they are “writing for” or “writing with.” Hmm…what does that mean (writing with)? Well, they have determined in their mind who they are talking “to” or “with.” And as the conversation around this topic increases, the writing moves from a one-way monologue to a dialogue of conversation allowing a community to write with each other.
This blog has focus, a passionate focus. Each blog post has a passionate focus. With this focus to the overall message with each and every post, consistent writing follows. Consistent writing establishes and reinforces the credibility in this ever growing space, allow the search engines to index more words spreading the reach. This focus allows audiences to connect with content, and a relationship begins and grows. This blog is the type of community that mirrors a tight community like Facebook, but has the mass appeal of Twitter.
People engage with the passionate content and respond by returning to read more. Then…maybe they take the time to nudge over the hump and comment. They might even sign-up to subscribe to the blog, then reply via email. People read, react, and engage with the content of a blog. Passionate writing invokes a change, the change to see a point-of-view differently thus wanting to further the conversation. They reach out.
Conversations build and multiply. As more and more people respond and comment to passionate writing, community of conversations build in the comment section. People not only comment about the passionate writing of the author, but also respond to others’ comments below the post. Those who came to connect with the author of the post connect with other commentors…a community is building.
It all started with passionate writing. Someone writing from the heart, consistently. Conversations.
What inspired you to start blogging? What was it? What made you that one day, sit down and set-up your first blog. Can you remember. I sure can!
It was my wife…and maybe I am a little bit biased. But what inspired me about her that made me start a blog. For starters, I had nothing to say. Really, nothing at all. She…on the other hand. It is September 2006 and Sarah had just accepted a new job here in the area. We were living in Charlotte both with good jobs. We were starting to find ourselves professionally when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. So, we felt this pull to get closer to home. She was the first to find a job and was hired as a strategic buyer at a large manufacturing group. Life was getting ready to flip upside down.
We had been living the high life for the first three years of marriage, fresh out of graduate school. We wanted to move back home, closer to family and pay off debt. So we sold our house, sold our expensive cars, moved into a crappy apartment, and used those good jobs to pay off debt. At the same time, Sarah’s mom was fighting breast cancer. That new job she started, well she hated it…but it was a good paying job. So, she started a journal. It was in a Word Document that started as a stream of consciousness. After a while, the document got so long, she moved it to a blog on Blogger.com. In 2006, she started blogging…journaling about life. Life with her mother fighting breast cancer, paying off debt, working a shitty job, living in a town that did not feel like home.
Over the next year, her mother got sicker and she wrote more. In the Fall of 2007, her mother lost her battle to Triple Negative Metastatic Breast Cancer…her blog was her coping mechanism. Her writing was raw and honest. This whole time we had been trying to get pregnant with little success. A year after her mother died, we got pregnant and life was great. Then we had our first miscarriage. After three miscarriages, she wrote plenty. She wrote about research, her experiences, doctors she found, and the list goes on. Sarah’s blog is our families journal.
We have family dinners and someone asks what happened last year and we know we can go to her blog to find the answer. Her focus of her blog has been her life struggles and life’s passions. She writes about her family, her mother, infertility, and cause marketing. She is not a big fan of those who benefit financially by exploiting those fighting breast cancer. She writes with passion.
A year after her mother passed away, she quit her job. She was tired of working for something she did not believe in…now works for a daycare taking care of two year olds. She loves it. The people in the daycare have no idea she has a Masters Degree, graduate top of her class in both undergraduate and graduate school, was homecoming queen in undergrad, and was her high-school’s valedictorian. She is one smart cookie and one hell of a writer.
She has yet to spend any money on her blog using the free platform of WordPress. She does all the design work. She does not use social media and other outlets to promote her blog. She does not have it professionally optimized with targeted SEO. She does not Tweet or Facebook her blog posts. She writes passionately…and people read! She has a few notable children’s book authors reading her blog on a regular basis. How does she know, well she password protects some of her posts. She does this because she knows family members read her blog, and she writes like it is her journal. So she only let’s certain people read password protected blog posts. Those author’s make a request for the password. Trust me, she gets lots of requests for the password.
Her blog is semi-private…meaning she does not use her last name on her blog yet has our picture posted. Some knows that it is her, but some have no idea who “Sarah” is right here in Anderson, SC.
She has a tremendous community. She calls them her “Bloggy Friends” and they all read each others’ blogs like clockwork. Each of them have come together because of a circumstance in their lives. One may write about breast cancer, one may write about her infertility story, or some just find each other because they are just funny. Regardless, they have found each other and they share with each other on their blogs. They write with each other…and they check on each other. If one has not posted in a while, they drop an email to check on each other. Sarah’s blog is her community and she always feels the need to write not only for her creative enterprise but to keep her “Bloggy Friends” in the loop.
Sarah’s blogging is an extension of her life, she is writing her story as she lives it. She writes straight from the heart. She writes with passion. Her blog has caused many family disputes, where she will write about a situation and someone will read her interpretation of the situation. They sometimes are not happy, but what they do not realize…her writing is her coping mechanism. She has thought about taking it down or going totally anonymous, but I have told her I support her writing 100%. The only thing I ask is that she not write about our personal marriage topics and also refrain from discussing the private part of my business.
Sarah is also a reader. She likes to read others’ blogs because she is genuinely interested. She treats this like and in-person conversation. She reads to learn and this reading turns into reciprocation. She is passionate about the blogs she reads and believes in her community.
Sarah is my inspiration. Her writing has inspired others. People read her blog when dealing with breast cancer, infertility, paying off debt, or just to read. She has had more people thank her for her writing…helping them deal/cope with a particular life situation. She is not writing for a mass market…she is writing to write. Her focus is her life and her passion is her family.
There is not perfect formula for blogging. You can read all the “experts” about blogging, SEO, neccessary technology…BLAH, BLAH, BLAH! But I do know this…you do not need a beautiful layout design, you do not need the best SEO expert, you do not need to pay for a blog! What you need is to write passionately. You have something in your heart that you are most passionate about…write about it. Sarah writes on a consistent basis, uses pictures, and puts her whole heart into each and every post.
Each time I start working with a client, I do not even allow them to set-up a blog until a few things have happened. First, they have a focus for their writing. I ask them to write a mission statement for the blog. Second, I ask them to write ten posts on a Word document based on this mission statement. Then I ask them, who do you think will read your blog…who are you writing for in every post. Blogging is not about the platform, the SEO, the distribution…it is about the writing, and the technology is just the platform to present your writing. Write passionately! BTW…I used Sarah as an example with each corporate client I work with. The example I explain…write passionately.
Here are some of the blogs I have helped start:
South Carolina Hospital Association’s President & CEO Thornton Kirby’s Blog: http://scha.org/thornton-blog/
Hello friends, here are my links for the week. As you can see…they include social media, mobile technology, physician marketing, and hospital social media. I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts about any of these article!
5 Mobile Technologies Retailers Should Be Using Now November 15, 2010 | Houston Neal of Software Device Mobile commerce is driving the next major shift in retail, and retailers that can learn to harness this technology stand to gain a competitive advantage. To learn about 5 mobile technologies retailers should be using, visit the Software Advice blog. CLICK HERE to read more.
The one sure-fire way to get more clicks and RTs for your blog posts November 16, 2010 | MackCollier.com
Write better headlines. That’s no big relevation, and there’s a lot that goes into writing better headlines. I’ll refer you to someone like @Copyblogger who has written a great series on writing better headlines. But there’s one area I wanted to focus on when it comes to headlines. I share a lot of links on Twitter because I am trying to find helpful information for my followers. CLICK HERE to read more. Calling Bullshit on Social Media November 18, 2010 | Tamsen McMahon
1) There are tools. There are people who use the tools. And then there are people who are tools. Know the difference.
2) Ass-kissing will get you anywhere, but where is that, exactly? Where do you actually want to gofrom there? Think long-term.
3) Speaking of long-term, “asshole” is not a long-term strategy. Neither is “edgy” or “off-putting.” What do you really want to achieve? And for how long? Build a strategy on that. CLICK HERE to read the rest of the 32 points!
NewberryCountyDoctors.com – Video Repository November 18, 2010 | Newberry County Memorial Hospital
Looking for a doctor and your in Newberry County, South Carolina…here is a cool portal providing videos of doctors talking about what they enjoy to do the most, practice medicine. Pretty cool idea to allow physicians to speak in-their-own-words by wrapping the searchable power of YouTube and a brand-able portal for Newberry County Memorial Hospital. CLICK HERE to learn more.
Woz: Apple Almost Launched A Phone In 2004, Android Will “Win The Race” November 18, 2010 | Robin Wauters
Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak was being his fascinating self again this morning, revealing in an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that the company he helped get off the ground actually developed a smartphone in partnership with a well-known Japanese electronics company as early as 2004, but shelved the project prior to its debut (via Engadget).
Video production is one of the most time consuming efforts one can take on when trying to create content for online media. It is not only one of the most time consuming but can be one of the most labor intensive and cost prohibited methods to engage an audience via a message. Now, I know that it has become easier to take that small video camera, shoot some video, upload it to YouTube, and post it to the site. But there is a balance: when to use professional based services/equipment and consumer based services/equipment.
As this is one of my areas of offering…I understand the market is shifting with online video content being created and offered by more consumer based models. But, with that said…this leads me to my argument. There are times and places when to use video content for the blog. There are times and places when to use consumer based equipment and when to use more professional based services. Bottomline…it comes down to MESSAGE. Yep!
Regardless of how and why you approach the production, video for the blog can be POWERFUL…Yes, if used the right way! Now, I am not an expert, just a person that understands user-centered applications of video content. I did get my graduate level education based in user-centered design and audience analysis and I been working behind the camera since 1992 with numerous awards for broadcast television excellence. That was the credibility spin for you…but it was to let you know I am not just shooting you a line of bull.
Here are some thoughts to consider when creating video content for your blog:
Do not put all of your eggs in one basket. Basically, no need to feel like you have to record an eight minute video about your thoughts when you can spread out the topics to multipurpose the content.
Multipurpose the content. You are going to invest in time in setting up the equipment to shoot the video, shot lots of short video segments that can be used not only in the blog but in other areas.
Keep the video content to around a minute, and no more than minute and a half. Remember, the attention span of a quick clicking web browser can only engage in video content so long.
Create multiple short video segments within one shoot. I worked with a client and we shot a whole years worth of content in one day, enough to release one video on his blog once a week.
Know that the video content for the blog must either take the complimentary position to the written content or the reverse. Know which is the most important content and shape the post based on this concept.
Research a good technical set-up for the shoot, if you are a one man show. DO NOT sit in front of a mirror or window…the camera will not like that. You can also use a household standing light as your “key light” filling your face to make you not look so dark.
Make sure you have a good audio set-up. This means invest in a microphone that can record you; so you not sound like you are standing across the room.
Consider hiring a video producer/message creator/videographer for this production. This person will help you formulate your message and keep you on task with the message and delivery. They will also help you with the technical side so you can focus on the delivery and not if the camera is going to tip over.
Use the power of YouTube. It helps you with SEO and also with that big homogenous linkage system that powers Google. Plus, it can play on almost all the mobile devices so anyone can view your message within your blog.
If you want to consider private hosting, consider someone that deliver to mobile devices via HTML5 or other javascript based applications. I use Sorenson360 and it has great user analytics from viewership to length of video watched.
So…take with a grain of salt. Give me your thoughts and ask questions.
